A Guide To Workplace Bullying, Harassment And Discrimination

As an employer, you have an obligation to ensure everyone in your workplace is treated fairly.

And, if treated unfairly, employees have the right to do something about it.

Workplace bullying, harassment and discrimination can have serious consequences. And these cases are on the rise.

These situations aren’t easy for anyone – whether you’re an employee facing the stressful process of making a claim against your own employer or an employer being put in a delicate position of scrutiny.

So, what constitutes bullying, harassment and discrimination? How do you make a claim? And, if you’re an employer facing these claims, what do you need to do?

Here, we’ll break down everything you need to know about this process.

What Is Bullying, Harassment And Discrimination?

As an employer, you have a responsibility to prevent bullying, harassment and discrimination happening in your workplace.

As an employee, you need to be aware of when it does happen to you, and what you can do about it.

Bullying

Workplace bullying is defined as unreasonable behaviour directed towards someone, which could threaten their health and safety.

Often, ‘bullying’ can be seen as the bigger umbrella that covers workplace harassment and workplace discrimination.

So, let’s go through them.

Harassment

As an extension of workplace bullying, harassment involves repeatedly or unreasonably treating someone in a way that threatens their health and safety.

This includes any behaviour that could be considered to be intimidating, threatening, victimising, humiliating or unsolicited.

It is important to note that harassment can take many forms. Even a one-off incident can constitute harassment.

For example, sexual harassment is legally defined as any unwelcome sexual conduct that is offensive, humiliating or intimidating.

Workplace harassment could include anything from insulting racial jokes to aggressive behaviour, derogatory comments and intentionally excluding someone from work events.

Therefore, it’s important to understand how seriously harassment can be taken, no matter how “big” or “small” the situation might seem.

Workplace Discrimination

Discrimination, on the other hand, occurs when an “adverse action” is taken against someone based on their background or attributes.

In simple terms, this means treating someone less favourably based on their gender, sex, race, disability, age or religion.

Discrimination could happen at any point in the employment relationship — from recruitment to training, promotion and up until dismissal.

To put this in context, let’s look at some examples.

Example 1

A woman applies for a job. During the interview, the employer asks questions around her plans for having a family, to avoid the woman from being employed based on the likelihood of her taking maternity leave.

Example 2

A man works full-time at an office. However, the man has a disability. There are limited to no accessibility facilities – such as wheelchair access – in the building.

What Are My Obligations As An Employer?

As an employer, you have a number of legal obligations to your employees.

Among them is the obligation to ensure that everyone in the workplace is treated fairly.

And, if you are made aware that this is not the case, you have an obligation to respond immediately.

Why? Failing to act when you are made aware of discrimination or harassment – such as not investigating complaints or taking prompt action – can be perceived as condoning or tolerating such behaviour.

So, the best thing to do as an employer is to be as proactive as possible. This means both responding to complaints as soon as possible and also promoting a healthy and safe working environment.

For example, you could have strong workplace harassment policies reflected in a Staff Handbook to prevent these situations from happening.

Where appropriate action is not taken by the appropriate management, your business could be “vicariously liable” for tolerating workplace bullying.

However, it’s also important to understand that reasonable actions do not amount to workplace harassment. For example, negative and legitimate feedback on work-related performance should not be confused with harassment or discrimination.

Therefore, employers should be aware of their responsibility to provide a safe work environment in a way that does not affect their responsibility to provide constructive feedback to their workers.

Need Help?

Whether you’re an employee looking to lodge a workplace harassment and discrimination claim or an employer facing these claims, we’re here to help!

Get in touch at [email protected] for a chat.

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